The Girl and the Wolf
by Myth979
Summary: Feyre and her sisters have managed to stay fed and clothed in the years since their father lost their fortune. Then Feyre kills a wolf too close to the wall. (an A Court of Thorns and Roses re-imagining, originally slated to appear in a zine that is now being revamped)
1. Chapter 1: The Girl

Andras watched the human girl crouched in the snow. He'd watched her for days now, trying to see if she was the one. _A_ one, he supposed.

The pickings had been slim this far north, but slimmer in the south. He had passed too many small, warm towns with fire and iron and dogs there, and dogs did not like wolves who came too close to their masters.

In the north there were smaller towns and it was colder, and there fewer animals this late in the winter. If he had wanted to die by dog pack he could have stayed in Prythian and annoyed Amarantha personally.

There had been a cottage - ramshackle but tended, with a little fence that the girl who saw him stepped behind. He had stopped and waited for her to do something - grab the hatchet by her gate, maybe, or shout an alarm - but she had just watched until another girl called her back inside to the fire.

This human girl was hungry and dogless, far from cottages and fires, desperate enough to venture into the forest in winter. Even Andras could tell she was too thin, and her boots bent oddly, as if her feet didn't fill them up. Humans, in his experience, were fussy about the fit of their footwear. She shivered in the cold too, tiny ones, like she had grown so used to her discomfort that her body barely acknowledged it. The bow she held was better treated than her clothing, and the fletching on her arrows showed care.

There were deer ahead, in a little clearing, and in the old days he might have led her to them, or left one dead and steaming near her, and maybe followed her home and done a thousand helpful things until he was bored or she stopped being appreciative. He was not a high fae to scorn work or the amusement that could follow when humans grew less cautious and forgot he was a wild thing.

The girl might be a wild thing too, he thought, watching her creep to the edges of the clearing, too-large boots and all. She saw the deer and stopped, assessing. He slunk around the edge of the clearing until he could see her and the herd.

The wind shifted, fluttering the bits of hair that had escaped her hood and carrying her scent to the deer.

They flung their heads up, ears and noses twitching, and the girl raised her bow.

Andras howled and leapt, putting the deer into flight and himself in the girl's sights. He saw her eyes flick past him after the deer, already gone, and back to him. He saw her hesitate, even with the quick flash of fury. He had chased her food away.

Another wolf would have fought. Another fae would have laughed. He didn't know for sure what a human would do, but he could guess.

For a long moment there was only the wind and the cold and the girl and the wolf.

Her face hardened, and she loosed her arrow.


	2. Chapter 2

"A wolf, Feyre? Really?"

"Did you want to go looking?" I asked, heaving the bundle of skin and meat onto the ground. Nesta made a face and stepped clear, keeping even the edge of her boots away from the runny drizzle of blood in the snow.

"Anyway," I continued as I stretched, "he was the biggest thing for miles."

I didn't mention that he had stared at me with human intelligence, nor how he'd stood between me and a herd of fleeing deer. Elain would be upset if she knew, and neither of us wanted Elain upset. She had a hard enough time eating meat as it was: knowing the wolf seemed to have sacrificed himself would put her off entirely. I hadn't minded her aversion to meat when we had been rich enough to afford vegetables at all seasons, but with winter come and coin always scarce Nesta and I had kept at her until she promised to eat whatever we managed to get on the table.

As if my thoughts had summoned her, Elain slipped out the front door to survey us, ducking easily under Nesta's arm to huddle there against the cold.

Both my sisters and I have pale blue eyes, pale skin, and light brown hair. We've thinned out from ten years of diminishing income, leaving our faces sharp. Old, much-patched clothes made Elain, at least, seem as if she was drowning in a puddle of mid brown fabric. Nesta's dress was too short, I noticed. It was the spare she and Elain shared, and I remembered Nesta saying something about repairing a torn hem this morning on my way out of the cottage.

As always, my sisters were scrupulously clean. I'd have to wash all of me and wear my own spare set of trousers and shirt before I went to bed if I didn't want Nesta scrubbing the entire cabin and dunking me into an ice bath herself.

Elain's face stayed blank as she carefully avoided the sight of the pelt and meat. "I'm glad you're back," she said. "Father missed you."

"How could he with you here?" I asked too-brightly. "But look Elain, I found some mushrooms and thistle - "

Her blank expression melted, leaving her the prettiest of us. Elain with the smile, Elain with the snowburned nose, Elain whose garden always sprouted first in spring.

Nesta, who never smiled, still softened. "I told you Feyre would try."

"_And _watercress," I continued. "I even managed to dig up some cattails."

"Feyre," Elain began, worry creeping in. "Feyre, how far did you go?"

Nearly to the wall, I thought, but said, "Just a little farther than usual. I'm still home in good time, right?"

"You shouldn't go so far," Nesta, who was not fooled and did not tolerate even white lies, said.

"I'll just let us all starve next time," I snapped. "Ash and bone, Nesta, I can take care of myself."

Nesta's lips pressed into a thin line, disappearing almost entirely, but she didn't reply. I shoved the plants at Elain, scooped up the remains of the wolf, and stomped around to the little cellar we'd dug after our first winter, where we'd learned the hard way that the cold might keep the meat but it didn't stop other animals from taking my kills. I hadn't been able to bag anything larger than rabbits at first, in some cobbled-together traps, but game had been more plentiful then, too.

We'd had money at the time - not a lot, but enough to survive that mistake. We'd been lucky, even if it hadn't felt that way at the time. Sometimes it even felt like a game.

The money had run out two years later, the direct result of four people who had never had to think about spending it, and suddenly I'd realized it was a game we could lose.

It was a then-sixteen-year-old Nesta who had bought the bow. She'd left with the last of her nice dresses and come back with it, three too-large threadbare dresses, and a grim expression.

She'd planned to use it herself, I think. Archery was an acceptable hobby for a young lady this far north, and Nesta had received some lessons in it before - before. She hadn't had the interest or the skill to do it long, but it was more than Elain, who had been thirteen when we lost everything, or me, who had been nine.

The fight when she'd found me using it had been ferocious, but the simple fact of the matter was that even at eleven I was better with the weapon, and I was better with mess. If I held uncured pelts Nesta could sell them to the most close-fisted widow in town, but she needed someone to hold them, and Elain cried later even if she managed at the time.

I hadn't let Nesta try to protect me then, two years after her most spectacular failure, and it galled that she still tried. I was not, after all, Elain. I was the one with the bow, the one who went out and came back, the one who could stand the cold.

I hacked off enough of the meat for a stew and some extra to eat that night before stomping back to the cabin. In the little shelter over the back door Elain and I had fought into place last winter, Nesta had laid clean clothes. As I struggled out of my old ones, swearing under my breath, Elain hurried out with a pot of steaming water and a cloth so I could wipe myself down.

I resisted the urge to ignore the water just to annoy Nesta, but it was close. The shed was cold, and the water warm, and Elain swung the door open so I could rush into the cabin and the glow of the fire before the water had a chance to turn freezing.

"Feyre!" Father called from the hearth, face lighting up when he saw me. Sitting beside him but clearly not _with _him, Nesta watched the fire and the pot hanging there blankly.

"Hello, Father," I said, sniffing the air. They had added water to the last of the stew, which meant Nesta and Elain hadn't eaten their full shares at least one of the nights I'd been gone. Otherwise there wouldn't be anything left to add water to. Elaine had added her mushrooms and watercress.

"Elain," I began, but stopped. They had been gifts. She could do what she wanted with them.

If it meant she didn't eat enough though, I was going to be as mad at her as I wanted.

Elain took the meat from me and added it to the pot. If she dumped it in a little quicker than necessary, no one was going to complain.

She sent a hopeful smile at Father, which he didn't notice. He never did.

Nesta glared at him and reached over to pat Elain's hand more firmly than any mother would have - Nesta had never mastered tenderness. Elain settled gracefully beside out eldest sister, leaning against her shoulder.

I stifled the flash of bitterness. Elain hadn't had to watch while the men my father owed beat him. Elain had been with Nesta, who had dragged her to the woods. Elain could still believe that Nesta would keep her safe - after all, Nesta always had.

Father patted the arm of his chair in invitation. It was the only chair in the cabin: Nesta and Elain sat on an uneven rag rug that Elain had painstakingly knotted together from scraps of this or that ruined bit of clothing. I was loathe to admit that most of the tattered clothes had been mine. My sisters had always been more careful, but then, they stayed inside more often.

I perched on the chair arm but didn't lean against my father. He couldn't protect me any more than Nesta could.

"Are you tired, Feyre?" he asked. "Maybe stay in tomorrow and rest."

Nesta refused to look our way, but Elain frowned. On her it was a prettier expression than on Nesta. Elain managed to look concerned instead of angry.

"I can't, Father," I said patiently. "Someone has to walk with Nesta."

"I can do it," Elain said.

I waited for Father to say something - maybe offer to go himself, or admit that we were all tired, that Nesta had cleaned the cabin until it glowed in the firelight, that Elain had been out tending to our sleeping garden in the cold, that both of them had to have washed and mended clothes for there to be a clean set for me to wear. Someone would have had to chop wood for the fire, since we were nearly out this morning. It wouldn't have been Father.

He said nothing.

"We can all go," Nesta said.

"Yes!" Elain exclaimed. "Feyre, you can see Isaac while I help-"

"Isaac?" Father interrupted.

Elain winced.

"He helped Feyre with snares when we were younger, Father," Nesta said, still focused on the stewpot even though stew needed little watching. Her voice held more of Father's easy capitol accent than usual, and every bit of it was laced with mockery. "Surely you remember."

Whether he was shamed for not remembering or shocked by Nesta speaking to him, Father asked no more questions.

Later, in the bed we shared in a curtained corner of the cabin, Elain whispered, "I'm sorry."

I almost didn't respond, but silence was a weapon in our family. Nesta used it against Father, I used it against Nesta, and Father used it against all of us when he wasn't pleased. I didn't like hurting Elain.

"It isn't as if he won't learn eventually," I said.

Elain curled against me. "You like him, don't you? Really?"

"Feyre is getting out," Nesta said. I couldn't see her in the dark, and I couldn't reach for her over Elain. "She'll take you with her, don't worry."

"I'll take both of you with me," I snapped. "Stop it, Nesta."

"And Father?"

I didn't have an answer, but it seemed wrong for Nesta to be asking about Father.

"Elain is easy," Nesta said. "You're sweet, Elain. You'll find a husband, and you'll help around the house."

"You'd help," Elain said, voice rising to a high pitch. We both shushed her. "You like cleaning," she insisted more quietly.

"I wouldn't help, I'd take over," Nesta replied. "Don't worry about me, Elain. I can take care of myself."

Elain curled up into a little ball, as unreassured as I was but equally unwilling to press the issue tonight.

I closed my eyes and thought of the woods. Nesta thought I went out to shame her, and Elain thought I did it out of goodness or love or whatever else. Really I did it to be alone.

I wouldn't ever be alone again when I married Isaac. The miller's wife handled the house and the business and sometimes the mill itself, in emergencies. She should handle the accounts too, but figures swam in front of my eyes and letters told me different things than they did Elain and Nesta. Even Nesta had given up on teaching me to master letters and accounts eventually.

Maybe I could hire Nesta to manage that sort of thing, I thought, and firmly turned my mind back to the forest. Thinking of Nesta wouldn't help me sleep.

Snow, I thought. The wind that pulled my hair everywhere if I didn't braid it tightly. The cold that seeped in through my coat and boots and gloves until my knuckles ached with it. Cold meant outside. Cold meant doing things. Cold meant freedom.

In my dreams I always walked the forest, but I rarely saw my kills. Now I stood looking at the wolf.

A wind blew through, knocking my hood back.

"Come and find me," the wolf said.

The bow appeared suddenly in my hands, arrow nocked and aimed.

"Come and find me," he said again.

"You're right here," I replied. I couldn't lower the bow, though I tried.

"Yes, and?" he asked, tongue lolling. Here he looked more like a dog than a wild thing, with his jaw dropped in a puppy's grin.

I wasn't hungry here. I didn't want to kill him.

"Come and find me," he said a third time.

I loosed, and the wind screamed my name.


	3. Chapter 3

Walking into town meant I could wake later than I would if I were going out to hunt, but Elain and Nesta woke when they normally would to get the fire going again and start melting snow for pine needle tea so I didn't get much extra sleep. We ate the pan bread Nesta had managed to bake over the embers overnight, though parts of it were overdone. Nesta took those bits herself, turning up her nose when Elain tried to trade.

I knew better. Nesta would, if pressed, admit that Elain was the better cook, but not when she was the one actually cooking. Letting either of us take the burned parts would be the same as admitting she wasn't willing to eat what she'd made, and I understood - I wasn't looking forward to eating wolf meat either.

"Wear this dress," Nesta ordered, yanking a long shift over my head just before Elain attacked my hair with a brush. She made me step into the nicer of her dresses - she was wearing the spare. "Here, I took in the bust on it and hemmed it and let out the sleeves-"

"I did some embroidery," Elaine added, twisting my hair into a braid much more gently than she'd brushed it and wrapping around my head. "It's not much, but a little bit of pretty is always nice."

She'd put more than a little bit of pretty into her efforts - she'd even put one of her treasured ribbons into my braid. I felt it when I reached up to make sure the braid wouldn't slip off my head. If I'd realized earlier I would have stopped her, but it was too late now.

"Nothing to be done about the boots," Nesta said, sounding irritable. She was cleaning them despite her irritation, I saw.

"Everyone else will be wearing them anyway," Elain consoled her, shooing my hands away from my hair.

Nesta grumbled as she dropped the boots in front of me and went to get our cloaks, tugging each one into place on our shoulders with brisk efficiency. She looked at me a moment longer than she did Elain, and said finally, "You look very nice, Feyre."

"I'm not _dying," _I snapped, and shoved past her and through the door to get the wolfskin. It felt strange to walk in skirts again, though I had worn a dress the last few times we went to town too. None of the northern villagers cared about women in trousers, but Isaac had mentioned once that his mother was from farther south and always wore skirts. I'd made the mistake of asking Nesta if I could borrow a dress the next time, and she and Elain had decided it meant I always wanted to wear them.

I didn't protest - Isaac did like it, even if I was just wearing Nesta and Elain's spare - but I wasn't sure _I _liked dresses all that much. I always stepped on the hem, and it made me feel clumsy. Neither Nesta nor Elain ever stepped on their hems.

Even with my too-big boots I was never clumsy in the woods. I didn't like the feeling.

I started rolling the wolfskin up, careful to keep sacking between the fur itself and the not-totally-clean underside. I'd scraped it as clean as I could the night before, but carrying meat in it had undone some of my work. It paid to be careful: the wolfskin was large and its fur luxurious, though it could have been a better color. White or black or pure silvery-grey sold better than the mix of brown and red and darker grey my skin sported.

A gust of wind blew, throwing my hood back and tugging bits of hair loose from my braids - Elain had made them pretty, not secure. I closed my eyes and for a moment let myself feel the cold sting and listen to the murmur of it through the trees. When I was younger I'd thought I could hear my name in it. I let myself pretend for another moment - _FeyreFeyreFeyre_. Then I went back to work.

Nesta and Elain had joined me by the time I'd put the rolled skin over my shoulders, and we started down the snow-covered path to town.

* * *

"Where'd you find one this big?" the merchant asked.

We'd arrived to the happy surprise of a small merchant's caravan. We hadn't realized they were coming through this week - sometimes we lost track of time, as far out as we were. I didn't want to mention moving closer. We couldn't afford it, but more, I wanted to stay out as long as I could, away from all these people. I'd have to live in the village soon enough.

The merchants meant more money for furs they couldn't get down south, and Nesta could always barter Elaine's few bits of embroidery for more seeds than our neighbors kept. She might get some roses this time if she was lucky - it would please Elain.

"Does it matter where it came from?" Nesta replied, sounding bored. "You won't find one bigger or in better condition. It was a clean kill. You can't even see the wound."

"If there are more like it around, maybe I'll talk to someone politer," the merchant said. "Maybe they'll give me a better price."

Nesta favored him with a look of amused condescension. "I'll wait."

He sighed. "You do this every time, Nesta. It wouldn't hurt for you to be nicer."

"You could just buy the fur," Nesta pointed out. "You will anyway. I'm not going to smile at you over a sure thing."

He sighed again, but he looked amused. "I'm buying, I'm buying. Same as usual."

"No," Nesta said when I almost handed over the fur. "It's twice as big as usual. Twice the price."

"Unreasonable."

"My sister killed a wolf that size on her own," Nesta retorted. "You're lucky I only want twice the price and not half the usual price again."

"Yeah, and what'll you get selling it just in the village?"

"I'll be helping the local economy," Nesta said primly. "Interacting with my neighbors."

"Uh-huh," he said, unimpressed.

"You'll sell it for three times the usual price at least," Nesta said.

_Feyre. _

I spun with the snow the breeze kicked up, ignored for the moment by Nesta and the merchant. No one was there.

_Feyre._

The wind, I realized. I'd never heard it sigh like this in town, but I wasn't often in town.

"Feyre?"

A touch to my elbow startled me, and I jumped away.

Clare Beddor looked at me with concern, though Nesta was still bartering with the merchant.

"Are you alright?" Clare asked, frowning at me in concern.

"I'm fine," I said.

"No Elain? Nesta let her go off on her own?" Clare asked. "She won't get the same without Nesta selling her embroidery."

"She's looking, not buying," I said. "We'll find her in a bit."

Clare nodded, the strands of silky dark hair arranged on either side of her face gleaming.

Clare was Elain's age exactly, and when we'd moved north Elain had been happy to have a friend. I thought it was silly - Elain made friends with whoever she was talking to at any given time, which wasn't always a good thing - but Elain said friendly aquaintances wasn't the same as being _friends. _When the money had run out we'd come to town less and less, and Clare's parents hadn't liked her coming out to visit us. Finding out that Clare had been trying to talk Elain into visiting the wall was the last straw: Nesta hadn't ever let Clare visit with Elain alone again.

"Faeries aren't _real, _Nesta," Elain had pleaded. "It's not like your bedtime stories."

"Maybe not," Nesta had snapped, "but _something _ is up there, and people go missing, and she's not going to drag you into it."

Nesta had so many faerie stories I didn't recall her repeating one unless Elain asked for it specifically. The stories hadn't ever helped me fall asleep - there were too many murders for that - but Elain had liked them, and Nesta had decided that bedtime stories were something that parents were supposed to do for children going to sleep, so bedtime stories we'd had, even back in the capitol. One of my earliest memories was Nesta sitting in a chair near my bed telling me matter-of-factly about the dangers of faerie knights, unable to pronounce some of the bigger words.

Nesta was why I hadn't hunted near the wall before. This last time I'd reminded myself that the fae preferred pretty girls, inside and out, and I was not Elain.

Now, Clare said, "Do you think Nesta will get what she wants?"

"Yes."

Clare laughed. She'd always laughed a lot. Sometimes I'd thought it was at me, but it was hard to tell. "She usually does, doesn't she?"

She wasn't wrong, but for some reason it felt disloyal to agree with Clare.

"Remember she couldn't sell it if you didn't bring it in."

"Obviously," I said, unsure what she was implying.

"Well," Clare said, resettling her cloak. "When you're married to Isaac you'll bring Elain with you. She'll do much better in town, and Nesta will have to look out for herself. See how she likes not bossing people around."

"When I marry Isaac," I replied, stung, "I'll bring _both _my sisters."

Clare, true to form, laughed. This time I was sure it was at me. "I'll sit back and watch Mistress Hale deal with her, then. My aunt isn't known for her patience."

I glared. Clare smiled and looked past me. "That is a pretty skin, though. Where did you get it?"

"North," I said, cold as the wind that had started blowing again.

Her eyes sharpened, and she stopped smiling. "How far north?"

I shrugged, turning back to Nesta and the merchant. Clare grabbed my shoulder. "Feyre. How far north? How close to the wall?"

I ignored her. Nesta was about to settle for just under her asking price, and we could go find Elain and buy her seeds and go home and not have to deal with any more nosy townsfolk for another while.

Except I still had to see Isaac. Well, I could do that while Elain and Nesta shopped.

"I'll buy it," Clare said loudly just before Nesta and the merchant formally agreed.

"Too late," Nesta replied without looking over her shoulder.

Clare named a sum. It was large enough that Nesta turned around and the merchant blinked.

"It's more than he's giving you, isn't it?" Clare asked. Her tone had an edge that made me step closer to Nesta so I was between them.

Behind me Nesta hesitated. It was more than she'd pretended to want, but the merchant was reliable and would buy whatever we brought next trip, whereas Clare had never bought anything we'd made before. She'd explained to me that steady money was more important than large but unreliable possibilities - that included, she added venomously, speculating on ship cargo.

"Let the girl buy it," the merchant said. "I'll buy more if Feyre keeps bringing them in, and maybe I'll have a for sure buyer next time.

I hadn't realized he knew my name. I looked at Nesta, who watched Clare as if the girl was more dangerous than the wolf I'd killed.

Clare took out her purse and counted out the coins, holding them to Nesta though she didn't look away from the pelt.

Nesta made a face and took them, stepping quickly away and pulling me with her. She nodded to the merchant, and I looked back as we walked away.

Clare collected the wolfskin. I didn't like how she touched it: the reverence she used set me on edge, like an itch inside.

_Feyre, _the wind whispered again, rattling the thatch roofs and wagon bits and knocking my hood off again. It sounded urgent.

Nesta stopped out of sight of the wagon to tuck the money away and fix my hood. "You'll catch cold," she said.

I couldn't put into words how strange Clare and the skin had made me feel, but when I gestured back Nesta understood anyway.

"Mistress Lorraine says Clare likes faerie stories," Nesta told me. "Too much. She thinks she's pretty enough for them to steal away."

"She is pretty," I said.

"She's very pretty," Nesta said. "She's not prettier than Elain. Why she wants to wed a faerie knight and live forever in his castle - I know you think I was cruel."

"You didn't want Elain to leave," I said. "I understand."

"I didn't want Elain to _leave_?" Nesta asked. "No. Clare listens to the stories, and thinks about the knights and the jewels, and forgets that all the girls end up dead."

"But they aren't real," I said. "What harm to go to the wall? I've done it."

Nesta's face tightened, and so did her sudden grip on my wrist. "Real or not, faeries or not. Clare listened to the stories about dead girls, and she wanted my sister to go with her."

_Feyre. _

"What is it?" Nesta asked, looking around.

"It's windy today."

"You're cold?" she asked with a frown, reaching up to feel my forehead. I ducked away, out of her reach and out of her grip. Her frown faded to her usual cool appraisal, and she said, "You're never cold."

"I'm used to trousers. How are you comfortable in these?"

She snorted and turned away. "Let's go find Elain."

I let her walk farther ahead of me than usual so when I heard it - _FeyreFeyreFeyre - _I could hiss, "What?"

_Come and find me._

I shook my head and followed Nesta.


	4. Chapter 4

Isaac found me while I watched Elain talk about seeds and gardening with another merchant, whose little waxed paper packets were Elain's main joy in life. I knew this one - her name was Sara, and she sometimes tied the packets with bits of ribbon or slipped some cuttings in amongst Elain's purchases. Once Elain had brought her some pressed violets as a thank you, and Nesta hadn't even grumbled about Elain using her book to do the pressing.

Nesta kept an eye on Elain now, but less carefully than she would have with anybody else.

"Good morning, Feyre," Isaac said, and I smiled at him.

Isaac didn't gamble, didn't drink, and worked hard. Nesta approved of him even if Father, who harbored more faerietale hopes than Nesta regarding our status, wouldn't.

"He makes a living and he won't hit you," Nesta said once, and had added, "If I'm wrong, hit him back harder and come home."

Now I said, "Good morning. Doesn't the mill need you?"

"Mother spelled me," he said. "Clare told me you were in town. She said you sold her a wolfskin?"

"Nesta did," I replied. "I just bring them in. Nesta sells them."

Nesta heard her name, looked over, saw Isaac, and turned back to the little labeled bags before her. She knew something about herbs and flowers - neither of us could have avoided it, living with Elain - but she had never had a great interest in them. I frowned at her.

"You won't have to do that anymore," Isaac reminded me. "Well, Nesta can still dicker at market. Mother will be glad not to have to go-"

"I can bring her?" I demanded, standing straighter.

He blinked at me. "Of course. I have a cousin - you know the Mandrays? Thomas says he'll marry her if she's as good with numbers and haggling as people say, and we know she is."

I looked at Nesta, who I knew could hear us, but she continued to stare pointedly at the seeds.

"She can manage Thomas," Isaac added comfortably. "He's a little wild, but Nesta will settle him, Mother says."

"Nesta can manage anybody," I agreed. "And Elain-"

"Oh," he said.

The wind whispered. I ignored it.

"Oh?"

He shifted, his feet crunching in the snow, and I saw Nesta turn her head to look at him from the corner of her eye.

"We don't have room for Elain," he said.

"Of course you do," I replied. "Your house is the largest in town."

He darted a glance at Nesta, who had turned enough to stare obviously at him, and shifted again. "Elain's not much use in a mill-"

"Elain's useful everywhere."

Isaac looked away from me and Nesta and up into the sky. "My mother doesn't want her."

"Who wouldn't want Elain?" I asked blankly.

"I think that's the point," Nesta said, voice colder than the snow under our feet and sharper than the still-whispering wind. "Your future mother-in-law is jealous."

I looked at Nesta and then at Elain, who was laughing with the flower merchant. We all shared Mother's nose and Father's eyes and the same coloring, but it was true that Elain had always had something that Nesta and I lacked. I had never figured out what it was, except that maybe it had something to do with how Elain could still laugh and chatter and press flowers, and Nesta and I…

Well, I had killed someone, and Nesta had hidden the body. Maybe that was enough to keep people from being truly beautiful.

It wasn't murder, I heard Nesta say again, like a chant. He deserved it, he would have hurt you, it wasn't murder. Anyone would agree.

Nesta must not have been certain though, because she had never told even Elain.

"I can't go if Elain doesn't," I heard myself say. Nesta I could leave. Nesta could survive. Elain, with her gardening and her sweetness and her aversion to meat? Elain would starve that first winter, even if nobody tried to take advantage of the nice sister.

"Feyre!"

Elain looked up when Isaac exclaimed, and I backed away from him, towards her and her flower seeds.

"Feyre will marry you," Nesta said, smiling her bartering smile. I saw Isaac's shoulders relax. "I regret that I can't marry Thomas, but Feyre shouldn't sacrifice her happiness."

The last was said with a level stare at me.

I shook my head.

"Feyre," Isaac said, with a quick glance around to see who was there to notice the argument, "I know you love your sister, but you love me, right?"

"I can't leave Elain," I said.

"Of course you can," Elain herself said, having left her merchant friend and walking up to link arms with me.

"I know you've never been without us," Nesta said, which she must believe even though I knew it as a lie, "but you'll be happy with Isaac."

Elaine whispered in my ear, kindly, "Don't worry about me. It's better Nesta and Father aren't alone in the house anyway."

Feyre, the wind whispered.

"Stop it," I said just as quietly.

Come and find me.

"Feyre?" Elain asked, worried, but it was Nesta who crowded Isaac out and laid her hand against my forehead again.

"Are you sick, Feyre?" Isaac asked from behind Nesta.

"I need to go home," I said. I didn't mean the cabin - I needed the woods, where the wind made more sense.

"Let me just," Elain began, but her friend appeared with the seed packets and pressed them into her hands. The merchant named a sum and held a hand out to Nesta, who handed the money over without arguing. I assumed that meant it was a good price.

We left. Isaac called after us that he would visit soon.

* * *

My sisters kept trying to talk to me on the way home, but I ignored them. Eventually they stopped.

Come and find me, the wind insisted.

I went past the cabin and Elain's garden and didn't stop until I could throw myself into the snow beneath a barren pine and sit shivering. The dress really wasn't as warm as my trousers and coat.

A breeze tugged at my hair, pulling little bits loose to wave around my face. It didn't say anything. I rested my head against my drawn-up knees and breathed.

* * *

"Did Isaac upset you?" Elain asked quietly. I noticed that she seemed to have picked around the chunks of wolf meat when she served herself from the pot. "It really is for the best that I don't go, Feyre. You and Isaac can enjoy each other's company, and I can keep Nesta and Father from being too terrible to each other."

She hadn't heard Isaac's offer to Nesta, then. I shot at look at our eldest sister, who shook her head tightly.

"You two and your secrets," Elain snapped, and slouched against the hearth, glaring at nothing.

As if Nesta and I were a pair, and Elain was the odd one out. Sometimes Elain seemed to think so, and always I wanted to shake her for it.

Father said, "Elain, slouching and throwing a temper tantrum is unbecoming of a lady."

"We aren't ladies," Nesta said immediately, though Elain straightened automatically and smoothed the glare away.

Father ignored them both and ate his stew.

I saw Nesta consider relaxing her ramrod-straight posture to make a point, but she couldn't quite make herself. Instead she ate quickly and neatly and got up to do the dishes, snatching Father's while there was still a bite or two left in the bowl. Father sighed as if heavily put upon but said nothing else.

Elain pulled out one of Father's spare shirts and began mending a tear in the sleeve, and I started going over the fletching on my arrows. Nesta went to bed before the rest of us, but Elain and I soon followed.

Before the curtain fell behind us Elain hesitated and asked, "Could you please bank the fire before you go to bed, Father?"

"I know how to deal with fires," Father said without looking at her.

Elain looked at me and I shrugged. I would be the one who woke up first. I could rekindle it if Father didn't bank it properly. She released the curtain, and we climbed into bed beside Nesta.

Elain didn't ask again if I was alright.

* * *

Wind. Cold.

My wolf stood in front of me again, careless of the bow I aimed at him.

"Come and find me."

I tried again to put the bow down and, again, failed.

"Come and find me."

The bow creaked as I drew the string back to my ear. I had no say in the matter.

"Come and find me."

I loosed.

* * *

It was early even for me when I opened my eyes to stare at the ceiling.

I hunted often. I killed things all the time. I had even killed a man. Why did I dream about the wolf?

Beside me Elain was curled into a ball, hair falling gracefully from her braid. Nesta's hair didn't dare, where she lay on my other side. Even in sleep Nesta had perfect posture.

They weren't moving, so what had woken me? Not the dream.

A sudden banging on the door startled my sisters awake. "Feyre!" someone shouted - not, I was sure, the wind.

I scrambled out of bed for my bow where Nesta made me leave it against the hearth as Father's door opened and Nesta picked up a piece of firewood. Elain waited until I nodded to open the door.

I lowered the bow when I saw it was Isaac, winded and red-faced from a midnight run through the woods.

"What in the world," Nesta began in her capitol accent, but Isaac cut her off.

"Clare is dead." he gasped. "I was worried-"

He stopped and leaned against the door jam, panting.

"You ran all that way?" Elain asked, and gently led him inside to sit by the hearth, which Father had not banked properly. Nesta knelt to get it started again as Elain darted back into our curtained-off room.

"What happened?" I asked. I didn't want to put the bow down.

"I don't know," he said. Elain returned and settled our blanket over his shoulders.

Nesta's lips thinned, and I knew she and I had the same thought: now our blanket would be damp, and probably smell like sweat.

"There's just pieces of her."

"This isn't proper conversation for the girls," Father said. I had forgotten about him. Now Isaac and Elain watched him warily, and Nesta struck flint and steel with more vigor than necessary.

"Sir," Isaac said, standing. Our blanket hit the ground. I hoped he didn't step on it. "Sir, I-"

"Good of you to warn us, Isaac," Father said. He put just enough emphasis on the name that even I knew he was chiding us. Elain ducked her head to hide a blush, and Nesta's back stiffened. "Or to warn Feyre, anyway."

"Sir," Isaac said again, back almost as stiff as Nesta's, "I hoped to do this under better circumstances, but since I'm here-"

Isaac tried his charming smile on Father, who raised his eyebrows. Isaac deflated a little and continued, "I'd like to ask Feyre to marry me, if that's acceptable to you."

Father considered, looking at the three of us. "I think Nesta has arranged it without me," he said. "My opinion clearly isn't needed."

He turned to go back to his room, but before he did he added, "It's good when a man likes more than just a pretty face."

Elain's flush deepened, and Nesta stood abruptly, but Father closed the door behind him before Nesta could say anything in Elain's or her own defense.

Isaac cleared his throat after a long, awkward silence. "Feyre?"

I didn't say anything.

"I'll talk to Mother about Elain," he said. "Look, I know she - you -" he stumbled when Nesta turned her stare on him. Elain slipped back into our curtained corner.

"I have other cousins," he finished lamely. "Look, please - here."

He held out a ring. "Whether you marry me or not," he said.

It was iron, I realized.

"Feyre's not going to be abducted by Faeries," Nesta said tartly, arms crossed.

Isaac said, "You're the one who doesn't want your sisters going to the wall. Clare-"

He closed his eyes. "Her head was in the well. The rest of her was just… everywhere."

I almost asked if the well would be usable before I realized how awful it would sound.

"I'll wear it," I said. I didn't think he would leave until I agreed, and we needed to make sure all of our doors were locked and figure out how to bar the windows if there was someone out there killing people up and tossing their heads into wells.

I put the ring on, though I didn't like putting my bow down to do it.

"I'll come out with some more iron for the doors and windows soon," Isaac promised as Nesta ushered him back out into the snow.

"We can walk you back," I said, reclaiming my bow, but he demurred and I didn't want to argue.

Nesta closed the door behind him and said, "we have some iron nails. We can put them in the doorframe."

"And keep pouches of salt and sugar on us?"

Nesta ignored my jibe, though she took it hardest when we couldn't afford salt or sugar - which was often.

"I have butterwort," Elain said quietly, peeking out from the curtain. "Or the seeds, at least, but they won't grow until it stops snowing. And there's the junipers that you get berries from-"

"I will bring back some juniper," I said, though more for the berries than the wood.

"I could plant some around the house," Elain continued. "They aren't difficult to keep alive, if you can bring me some with roots."

I should have thought of it before - junipers were useful for all sorts of things, even if I didn't think fairies were coming to murder us in our beds.

The worry on Nesta's and Elain's faces was annoying. We were grown women. Just because Nesta had read us too many fairy stories when we were small was no reason to think they were real.

But if I left, whoever had killed Clare might come here. That was a thought for tomorrow. Tonight Nesta barred the cabin door and I did my best to block the windows while Elain banked the fire properly.

We slipped back into bed, and Nesta and Elain managed to fall back asleep.

I stared at the ceiling, deciding whether I should risk sleeping late or stay up and watch the door.

Sleep, I decided, but before I really tried to do so I slipped the ring off my finger and onto Elain's.

I had the bow, I reasoned, laying back. Nesta didn't leave the house as much. It was Elain who was outside in the garden the most. If faeries were real - if - she would need it most.

I closed my eyes.

* * *

"Come and find me," the wolf said.

My bowstring twanged.


End file.
